


Sealskin

by Vulcanodon



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, F/F, Fluff, Mutual Pining, On Purpose: On Purpose I Will Care About You
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:40:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23097994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vulcanodon/pseuds/Vulcanodon
Summary: A quiet moment set around season 3. Basira considers her position as hostage."Daisy relaxes slightly and then says, almost shyly, “You can keep reading.”Thanks for the permission, Basira almost says, but there's always the risk that Daisy will take it as some kind of rebuke, move away. So instead Basira just asks, “Do you want me to um, read it to you?”“If you want,” Daisy says, like she doesn’t care one way or the other.  "
Relationships: Basira Hussain/Alice "Daisy" Tonner
Comments: 12
Kudos: 44





	Sealskin

**Author's Note:**

> I've only listened up to the season 3 finale so this may all be retconned or innacurate for season 4 but oh well.

It’s nearly two in the morning but Basira is still up; head buried in heavy academic volume about Scottish folklore. It’s badly written; way drier than the subject matter deserves and so complicated that Basira’s eyes keep drooping. Still, she doesn’t want to go to bed yet. Going to bed means waking up tomorrow morning and going into work.

Which is… _fine_ , I mean she’s been at the Institute long enough now not to be too affected by the overall creepiness. And it’s not as if the work is hard (and Basira’s still not entirely sure what her job actually is, beyond hostage). She’ll just be reading the same book on a different sofa anyway. But it means reading on a sofa trying to ignore Tim’s brooding and Martin’s anxious fretting and Elias’…well, _lurking_ is the best way Basira can describe it.

Melanie will be there of course and maybe they’ll go out for lunch, but it was a bad sign when your favourite co-worker is actively attempting to murder people half the time. It doesn't exactly make for a stress-free work environment.

And besides, for all that the book is giving her a mild headache, it _is_ interesting really, even if it’s not particularly useful. Stories of changelings and creeping three-eyed creatures in caves and strange white horses that drag children down to devour them in lochs. Basira has always liked myths and legends like these, ever since she was a child. She was never frightened by them; she had just been curious.

Of course, it was easier back then when there was a clear line between what was real and what wasn’t. Now when she re-reads them, Basira can’t help but wonder how many of these myths have some grain of truth at the heart of them. How many stories told around fireplaces in low cottages were actually confessions?

The wind is very loud outside tonight; the weather is horrible even for London in March. Nights like this, Basira’s flat feels like a warm little ship suspended over the big dark noise of the city. It’s so loud outside that it’s hard to believe that she’s surrounded by so many people. She can’t even hear the usual traffic from the street or the wetherspoons crowd stumbling out into their waiting ubers.

The silence is suddenly disturbing, and she gets up, walking over to the window, suddenly eager to see some other sign of life. But when she steps close enough to the window to feel the faint chill that radiates off the glass, there’s only dark buildings and the streetlights far below. She shivers slightly and hunches her shoulders in her jumper and that’s when she sees it; the familiar boxy old Subaru parked across the street.

The headlights are off but Basira can see the dark shape hunched over in the driver’s seat and for a moment she almost feels angry. It must be freezing out there and she knows, she _knows_ that the heating won’t be on.

She fumbles for her phone and makes the call without really having to look. She could dial this number in her sleep. 

Daisy picks up on the first ring; as if she’d been waiting for it.

“Basira,” she says bluntly, as if Basira’s the one being rude by calling this late at night.

“Why don’t you come inside?” Basira says, straight to the point. “You have the spare key.”

Daisy is silent for a short moment and then she clears her throat. “Alright.”

Then she hangs up. Basira sighs and looks down at the phone in her hand, rubbing at her temple with one hand. She’s not sure whether to be annoyed or relieved that Daisy didn’t even try and give any explanation of why she was staking out the flat like Basira was some kind of criminal. After a moment Basira decides she’s too tired to feel one way or another about it and goes to put on the kettle instead. She gets out the chamomile teabags because, although she knows Daisy would prefer black coffee, the thought of all that caffeine this late at night is nauseating.

She rummages through the cupboards for a moment looking for biscuits but then gives up. Daisy would hardly notice they were there anyway; she eats whatever is out in front of her most of the time and then tends to forget food exists otherwise. Back when they were first partners Basira had spent a lot of time trying to work out what type of food Daisy would like. She had been so eager to impress Daisy back then, or at least befriend her. They must have visited every all-night kebab shop and chippie in the greater metropolitan area before Basira had realised that Daisy literally didn’t care what she was eating as long as she could put ketchup on it.

The kettle is still boiling by the time the front door opens and Basira hears footsteps in the hallway.

She doesn’t look round, just calls out over her shoulder, “Shoes off! Especially if there’s any blood on them.”

It’s not completely a joke (more a lesson learned from hard won-experience) but Basira still regrets saying it when she sees Daisy appear in the doorway. She doesn’t look injured but she’s hollow eyed and gaunt and swaying slightly on her feet. She smells awful, like burnt chemicals and Basira has to make a conscious effort to stop her nose from wrinkling.

“Oh wow, you look like hell,” Basira tells her and Daisy snorts out a laugh and gives her an exhausted smile.

“Thanks,” she says drily and then reaches out for the mug. “Please tell me that's coffee.”

“You know it’s not,” Basira says, stepping forward to hand it over. When their fingers brush, Daisy’s skin is ice cold and Basira has fight back the instinct to take them in her own, rub some life back in the same way her dad used to do when she had been playing outside in the snow as a kid.

Instead she nods toward the sofa and carefully doesn’t touch the sleeve of Daisy’s leather jacket to guide her there and then when Daisy slumps down on one end, Basira perches carefully on the other.

They have space between them, like always. It’s a safe distance and familiar and sometimes Basira wonders if Daisy ever notices how carefully Basira maintains it.

“So, want to tell me why you woke me up in the middle of the night?” Basira says, tucking her knees up neatly underneath her and watching Daisy over the top of her mug.

“You’re the one who called me up here,” Daisy says, tipping her head back against the back of the couch and closing her eyes. “And you weren’t asleep. I saw your light.”

“So, you _were_ watching me,” Basira accuses and Daisy opens her eyes just a crack to give her a sidelong glance as if to say, _duh_.

“That’s not okay Daisy,” Basira tries again, “Friends don’t stalk each other.”

“You’re my partner,” Daisy says stubbornly, “I’m watching your back.”

“You’re not my partner anymore,” Basira says quietly and then regrets it when she sees Daisy hide a wince. “You don’t need to protect me. I’m alright.”

“Are you?” Daisy asks, sounding awake for the first time and _angry_. “You’re- we’re both trapped! Working for some evil prick for some kind of freak show organisation. And sometimes, you don’t seem to even _care_ about it-“

  
“What about you?” Basira snaps back, holding the mug so tightly it burns her fingers, “You’re the one going out doing god knows what, killing those things and you won’t even talk to me about it!”

“You could come with me if you wanted to,” Daisy says, leaning forward so suddenly that the tea splashes onto her lap. She doesn’t seem to notice though, even though it must be scalding, her eyes fixed so intensely on Basira that it’s hard to hold her gaze.

Basira draws in a shaky breath and then all the tension leaves Daisy at once, as if her strings have been cut and she falls back against the sofa again, closing her eyes.

“Sorry,” she says roughly. “I don’t want that. I don’t know why I asked.”

Basira is stung by this a but also deeply and guiltily relieved. She tries to say something, even opens her mouth around the shape of Daisy’s name but then in the end she doesn’t really have anything to say. This has always been their problem, right from the beginning. They communicate so well, so seamlessly without words. In the beginning it had almost frightened Basira how well Daisy understood her, like it was almost telepathic. But then when it came to actual conversations… there was a lot they didn’t say. That neither of them have ever said.

After a moment, Basira picks up her book where it’s fallen on the floor and finds her page again. Besides her, Daisy is so still she might be sleeping, eyebrows scrunched together like she’s scowling even in her dreams. Basira knows she isn’t though, so she doesn’t let herself look. She reads instead.

This chapter is on selkies; seals who slip off their skins and become human woman. Dutiful wives and mothers.

Basira idly wonders if Jon’s ever taken a statement from some remote fisherman on the Scottish coast, whose wife ran off into the waves. Maybe it’s not scary enough. All the stories seem to revolve around husbands who try and trap their seal-wives into marriage. Basira thinks the idea of having your wife being secretly a seal isn’t that scary at all. Scarier to be a selkie itself, trapped in some fisherman’s cottage for years in a body that limits you to dry land.

For all that the others think she doesn’t care, Basira doesn’t like to be trapped. She isn’t as angry as Melanie or Tim but she feels it, the frustration. The fear. The lack of any power or agency. But unlike them, she had chosen it to some degree. She had let herself be caught, for Daisy. Just like Daisy had done the same for her. They were holding each other hostage really.

Basira's thoughts get sleepy and muddled as she reads on, the words blurring on the page. She can smell the steam rising from her mug and hear the wind raging outside but her world has become narrowed to this sofa, to Daisy’s solid presence on the cushions beside her. It's always strange to see Daisy at rest. Her body doesn't seem made for it. 

Basira thinks about selkies and cold islands in the rough sea. Woman rising up from the waves, dripping with salt and foam and big dark seal eyes. 

She's so caught up in the words that she doesn’t notice that Daisy has shifted until she feels the weight of her head coming to rest in Basira’s lap. Basira stays very, very still and when she looks down, Daisy’s eyes are shut tight, her eyelashes very pale over the blue shadows beneath her eyes. 

“Is this…” Daisy mutters through a jaw that’s almost clenched. “Is this alright?”

“Yeah,” Basira says a little too thickly and then clears her throat. “Yeah it’s alright.”

Daisy relaxes slightly and then says, almost shyly, “You can keep reading.”

_Thanks for the permission_ , Basira almost says but there's always the risk that Daisy will take it as some kind of rebuke, move away.

So instead Basira just asks, “Do you want me to um, read it to you?”

“If you want,” Daisy says, like she doesn’t care one way or the other.

But Basira knows her better than that, so she smiles to herself and starts from the top of the page, where the passage describes different variations of the story in minute detail, going into exhaustive detail about the ethnographic context. It was hardly thrilling stuff, but Daisy doesn’t fall asleep; if anything, she seems to be listening with an ferocious level of concentration.

Every so often Basira looks down at her face, but every time she does, she stumbles over the words and loses her place in the text. They never touch like this, not ever, and now that it’s happening, the nearness of Daisy is almost too much. It makes Basira feel jittery and on edge, like everything in the world was suddenly just a little off- kilter. Basira was intensely, horribly aware of the sound of her own voice, even though she had read aloud before, just the other day in fact for a statement. It was different somehow when she was reading for one person instead of a faceless crowd of listeners. It suddenly occurs to her that she could say anything at all right now and Daisy would listen. It makes her feel reckless. Impulsive.

Daisy must feel it too, the strange impulse to talk and be heard, because when Basira comes to the end of the chapter, Daisy clears her throat and says, “I wasn’t stalking you. When I was outside.”

“Um,” Basira says, caught off guard and lowering the book slightly. She looks down and Daisy has opened her eyes but was still looking away, across the room at the dark window.

“I do want to look out for you. I want to make sure you’re safe. But that’s not why I was there tonight,” Daisy went on, speaking in short jerky sentences, like this was a complicated script she was trying to remember.

“So why _were_ you there?” Basira asks. “Did- did you need my help?”

“Yes,” Daisy breaths out in a sigh. “But no, not in the way you mean. I just. Sometimes after I’ve been on a job. I like to…this is going to sound creepy.”

“I think the word creepy has lost all meaning at this point,” Basira points out and Daisy lets out a soft huff of a laugh.

“I don’t know. I like to drive past your street. You always have a light on and it…It helps me remember.”

“Remember what?” Basira asks and then without really thinking about it, reaches for Daisy’s hand where it’s clenched like a fist against the pillows. She doesn’t quite reach it; she stops herself at the last minute, hovering in the air. Basira doesn’t know if it’s safe to touch Daisy in the way she wants to; she doesn’t know where the lines are between them anymore.

“Remember that you’re here,” Daisy says and then in almost a whisper, “I don’t want to be alone. I was being selfish really, when I didn’t kill Elias. Because if you were gone then I- Then I wouldn’t…” 

Basira is so scared; she’s scared all the time these days, even if she hides it well but she takes Daisy’s hand anyway, because Daisy’s voice is shaking. At first, it’s just a light brush of hands but then Daisy grabs at it almost desperately, holding on tightly.

Basira thinks about selkies, about how some of them must have chosen it willingly, to give up their beast coats and trap themselves on land.

To love someone, anyone, means risk. It’s something that can be used against you. It’s the possibility of not being loved back. It’s the even scarier possibility of having something to lose.

Daisy still won’t look at her, but her hand is warming up now in Basira’s. It’s getting late; soon Basira will have to go to work. And Daisy will have to go back out there. To do…whatever it is that Daisy does in the dark.

“You can stay here tonight,” Basira says. “I’ll make up the sofa. We can go out for coffee in the morning maybe.”

“That sounds good,” Daisy says, a little roughly. She looks so tired that Basira thinks maybe she might just fall asleep right there in Basira’s lap. Basira wouldn’t mind that. She’ll sit here all night if it will help Daisy sleep. 

It's hard to read and turn the pages one-handed but she manages somehow. 


End file.
